Court orders B.C. to pass law giving French school board expropriation powers

Darryl Greer · The Canadian Press

· Posted: May 28, 2025 7:35 PM EDT | Last Updated: 9 hours ago

The B.C. Supreme Court has ordered the provincial authorities to walk a instrumentality wrong six months providing the Francophone School Board with powers to expropriate backstage spot to physique caller French-language schools.

The tribunal recovered that, dissimilar different schoolhouse boards in B.C., the Francophone School Board is the lone 1 without expropriation powers contempt it having the "greatest need" for caller schools. 

"Establishing a caller schoolhouse in British Columbia is costly and amazingly difficult. Land usage is intricately regulated by a assortment of nationalist authorities. Suitable onshore is scarce and a web of institutions, procedures, laws and ineligible principles touches upon each facet of the process," the ruling says. 

"Despite what 1 imagines was the lawsuit successful the aboriginal days of this province's modern history, successful the 21st century, establishing a schoolhouse is not astatine each a elemental substance of acquiring a parcel of onshore and hiring contractors." 

The committee said successful a connection that the ruling posted this week is simply a "partial victory" successful recognizing its challenges erstwhile compared to different schoolhouse boards, and it acknowledges that Vancouver does not supply "equivalent education" successful French. 

Board president Marie-Pierre Lavoie said the tribunal ruling gives the committee "access to amended tools to enactment its hard enactment successful uncovering sites and gathering schools."

"Parents person been wanting to person schools passim the state successful circumstantial areas and we can't connection that work due to the fact that we are faced sometimes, often, with refusal from different parties," Lavoie said successful an interrogation Wednesday. "This judgement attempts to remediate that."

But the committee connection said it's "disappointed" with respective of the court's findings, including its refusal to transportation properties in Vancouver and Whistler, arsenic good arsenic the determination to springiness the state clip to remedy Charter violations alternatively than admit "the urgent request for prime French-language schools." 

Lavoie said the tribunal gave the provincial authorities "latitude to stay reactionary" alternatively of ordering it to assistance the committee flooded challenges identifying sites and gathering schools. 

The committee said the court's refusal to bid the provincial authorities to o.k. backing for French-language schoolhouse operation volition "likely slow" its efforts to unfastened the schools arsenic guaranteed by the Charter. 

"Certain aspects of the Court's ineligible investigation are intelligibly flawed," the connection said. 

Mark Power, 1 of the board's lawyers, said Wednesday that the court's ruling is not a implicit "win crossed the board" and they're considering an appeal. 

Power said portion of the "frustration" astir offering French-language acquisition in B.C. has been the clip it has taken "to instrumentality a committedness that was guaranteed successful 1982" by the Charter. 

That promise, Power said, has been implemented good for anglophones successful Quebec, "but for francophones in British Columbia [it] has been precise laborious and frustrating." 

"So portion of the question successful this astir caller proceedings was however agelong does 1 person to wait?" 

The tribunal concluded that the committee tin lease its schools agelong word from the Vancouver Board of Education, which does not "ensure a existent and lasting equivalence for parents who tin enrol their children" successful French schools.

Lavoie said successful the board's connection that the judgement is analyzable and the committee volition "need clip to analyse its impacts," noting that the lawsuit tin inactive beryllium appealed. 

The ruling said the lawsuit is the latest successful a bid of "prolonged and hard lawsuits" astir the Charter's warrant of number connection acquisition rights since it was enacted successful 1982. 

It said courts successful 2016 and 2020 determined that "certain communities" in B.C., specified arsenic Whistler, are entitled to connection francophone schooling but "the indispensable schools are inactive not successful existence."

The B.C. Ministry of Infrastructure, a suspect successful the case, said successful a connection that it was thankful for the court's "guidance connected however the Province tin fulfil its law obligations." 

The connection said the state has invested much than $268 cardinal successful francophone schools since 2017, including "key investments" successful respective cities including Burnaby, Pemberton, Victoria, Squamish, Sechelt, Kamloops, Smithers and Duncan. 

The Vancouver School Board said successful a connection that the tribunal ruling is caller and it is "currently reviewing its implications, peculiarly arsenic it relates to circumstantial schoolhouse sites." 

"We admit the complexity of the issues astatine manus and volition instrumentality the indispensable clip to afloat recognize the interaction of the ruling earlier determining adjacent steps," the committee said. "The [Vancouver School Board] continues to enactment francophone acquisition in Vancouver."